


How far away does the light seem?

by Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat



Category: Scarlet and Ivy Series - Sophie Cleverly
Genre: 1936 Insane Asylums are not a fun place to be, Angst, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Rose Fitzwarren is still grieving, Selectively Mute Rose Fitzwarren, Spoilers for Book 4 - The Lights Under The Lake, These books are filled with childhood trauma, This is in literally half a paragraph, Traumatised Rose Fitzwarren, Traumatised Violet Adams, Violet Adams is a good friend, Violet Adams is not a bad person, all the trauma, but it still might be triggering so I'm tagging anyway, the side effects of being trapped in an Insane Asylum when you're actually sane
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat/pseuds/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat
Summary: Rose has never met someone like Violet. Frankly, Rose has never really met anyone her age at all.
Relationships: Rose Fitzwarren & Violet Adams
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	How far away does the light seem?

**Author's Note:**

> Do y'all ever wonder what happened while Rose and Violet were trapped in what was essentially hell? Because I do.
> 
> Also for my friend Snekwami, because they listen to me ramble about this series even though they've never read the books.

Rose barely remembers life before the asylum. It has been so long that she has almost forgotten what it's like to be loved. She has vauge, warm memories of her parents, and much clearer ones of their funeral. It had, ironically, been a pleasant day, which just cast her first meeting with the rest of her relatives in darker shadows.

Involuntarily, her fingers squeeze into tight fists. Yes, Rose does not remember love, but she remembers hate and fear perfectly well. She remembers the brief, brief period she'd stayed with her "family" before they'd thought to lock her up here, and she remembers the threats and shouting and fury, and so much pain. They'd wanted her to hand over the fortune, and even then, young as she was, she'd known not to. They hadn't taken that very well.

Well. They'd gotten their way anyway.

The loud noise of somebody (new, she absentmindedly notices) screaming starts her from her thoughts, and she nervously wraps her hands around her necklace. It grows louder as whoever it is is dragged past her door, and she can just make out words.

"Let me go!" The new person shouts, fury and fear alike colouring her tone. She sounds young, and her accent is privileged, but there is a strong American twang in her voice, probably emphasised by terror. Rose is instantly intrigued. There are very few people close to her age in the asylum, only a couple of which she's seen for more than a moment, and even less coherent enough to throw fits.

Because God knows any sane person would throw a fit here, Rose thinks bitterly. She carefully does not think about some of the doctors she's seen, or what they'd done to the women. What they'd done to her.

There is the sound of the door next to hers being opened, and manhandling (the girl yells the entire time, voice cracking with emotion), and then the door is closed and locked. The bolt sliding into place with a loud thunk is surprising, though. That means they think she's violent. Rose suspects that she hadn't just been yelling when they dragged her along, which would probably explain the fact her shouting went uninterrupted, now that she thinks about it. The guards don't like all the screaming, but if they were too focused on trying not to get kicked they wouldn't be able to shut her up.

The girl does not stop yelling (Rose catches "I'm not insane!" and, "It's Miss Fox who's a psycho!" Which only hightens her interest in her) until she physically can't anymore, her voice hoarse and painful sounding by the end. She yells until she starts crying.

Her sobs are stifled, but Rose still hears them. She can imagine the girls' chest heaving with repressed emotion, shaky hands covering her mouth while tears stream down her face. Rose was like that too, once. Before she learned that having no voice, and making no noise, was better than speaking.

Somehow, she doubts her neighbour will take to being quite. She wonders if she'll meet her new neighbor, or if they'll never see eachother (her last neighbor hadn't been let out with the others at all, and Rose remembers her frantic ravings, filled with harm. She also remembers the blood-curdling screams.). She'd like to meet her, she thinks.

The girl steadily grows quieter, not calm (it's impossible to be calm in here) but numb, probably. Rose ponders on how her new neighbor will fair in this hell-hole (well enough, if she's concious enough for self-defence), and the small, friendly part of her that has somehow avoided being crushed suggests that Rose try to befriend her. It is, admittedly, an interesting thought.

The girl has gone completely silent now, but Rose is also pretty sure she's asleep. Shouting like that takes it out of a person (and she'd know). Rose runs her fingers over her necklace (she'd had to bite people to keep it, the doctors claiming it "kept her trapped in her fantasy") and tries to imagine what will happen with the new girl tomorrow.

There are a lot of negative outcomes.

⁂

They don't let the girl out the next day, nor the day after that. In fact, Rose is not quite sure how long it takes, because she loses track sometime after a week. She listens to her neighbour yell and cry and whimper (Rose likes that sound least, and she hears it only when she should be sleeping), and hears her nervous ramblings. Occasionally she catches her worrying about somebody called Scarlet, although in the oddest way - insults that disguise genuine anxiety.

She yells at the doctors, and Rose is honestly quite glad she seems to be so violent, because one of the new doctors is assigned her case and Rose isn't sure if he's evil or not (none of them are good, but there are different shades of bad, and Rose has already grown quite attached to her neighbours' vicious toungue and snark, and she'd hate for something truly awful to happen to her. She doesn't want her to end up like her first neighbor, broken by the doctor supposed to be fixing her (they'd claimed it would fix her, and Rose has just enough context to know that she'd been... into other women, and she'd heard it happen. The woman had cried and cried and cried until she'd stopped making any noise at all. Corpses reek, and the walls didn't really stop the smell from escaping.))

But eventually, eventually, she is let out with the others. The first thing Rose notices about her is her dark hair, almost polar opposite to her own golden curls (as tatty as they are). The second thing she notices is the bruises (fighting back is never a painless process, and Rose winces in sympathy), and then the much more faded, but still rather livid, scratch marks on her throat. They both do and do not seem to be her own making (they're in awkward places, accessable by hand but hard to get to) until Rose spots two much larger scratch marks almost symmetrical at either side of her windpipe, near where her head joined her neck.

It clicks instantly - choke marks aren't very inconspicuous, honestly, although the doctors seem to miss them often enough. Rose wonders who gave them to the girl: it was obviously somebody older than her, and Rose can't help but wonder if she's in a situation similar to her own. Her accent is privileged enough, and so is the way she holds herself.

The new girl assess the room for threats, and keeps close to the wall, but otherwise makes no movements. She assess, and stays on guard, hands curled fearfully at her sides.

She says on edge for the entire time she's out, practically vibrating with it. When they're herded back to their rooms, she snaps and snarls at anybody who gets too close, a bit like a cornered dog. But the thing is - Rose has seen every type of insanity there is to offer, and she doesn't think she's insane. Frightened and frantic and furious, yes, but not insane. She's only responding rationally to the general threat of the asylum with fight or flight instincts, and hers seem to have landed firmly on 'fight'.

Rose keeps a careful eye on her the next few times she's out (they're patchy, because she keeps fighting back), just to be sure, and her behaviour remains consistent. Rose is heavily inclined to believe she's sane. So, when they let her out for the fifth time, she cautiously approaches. The girls' eyes (which are a deep brown, now that she's looking) lock onto her instantly, and though she tenses, she's not bound tight like a spring like she is when the guards approach. She seems more curious than anything, but she's still wary. Her eyes map the exits once more.

"What do you want?" She asks, voice defensive, when Rose clears her throat (it's a safe noise- can always be played off as having a dry throat). Her accent is only very minor now, completely unlike the strong twang it'd been when she was dragged in, which Rose takes as a sign she's not as afraid.

Rose doesn't respond, though. It's not worth breaking her silence for. Instead, she merely tilts her head questioningly, giving a small wave hello.

The girl seems quietly bewildered by that, though she says, "You're weird.", quite rudely. Rose can see how tense she is, and lets it go. No need taking offence with someone as nervous as her. She mentally notes that the girls' response to most things seems to be rudeness, snark, and violence.

She sighs (another safe noise- it could just be her breathing heavily, or her version of a yawn), and makes an X over her mouth with her fingers. The girl is definitely intelligent, because that's all she needs to realise, "You're mute?" Rose nods. The girl lets out a quiet, "oh."

Rose sighs again, and gives her another inquisitive look. "Oh," She says, catching the look, "are you trying to ask me something?" Rose nods, and taps her chest where the doctors have their name badges. The girl furrows her brow before realisation hits. "My name?" She asks, and Rose nods again. Honestly, conversations with people are so tiring. "It's Violet Adams," the girl says, bitterly, "but the doctors say it's Lavender." She looks away.

Rose winces sympathetically. This conversation has added to her suspicions that the girl -Violet- is here on false claims, because she's been nothing but cordial to Rose's non-threataning approach, and she was behaving very rationally (it's what Rose thinks is normal, but she can't be sure because she hasn't been around anyone normal for a very long time. The guards and doctors are as not-normal as the patients, and she's pretty sure her family are also not-normal.). Also, frankly, her whole demeanour just screams, 'anxiously terrified', and that would be any well-adjusted person's response.

Rose isn't sure how to continue this conversation, and it'd already been rather exhausting (she's so very unused to talking to people, and even more so having them listen, so this very brief conversation has used up her socialising reserves for a month), so she leaves Violet to her silent brooding, and merely waves goodbye before walking off again.

That interaction went strangely well, and Rose feels a tiny spark of warmth flare in her chest. It's been so long since she felt _hopeful_ like this, and she hopes, she wants, to become Violet's friend.


End file.
